On this rainy Friday afternoon in NYC, a friend forwarded some quotes I wanted to share (my office walls are adorned with great quotes)….

Be ready when opportunity comes…Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet: Roy D. Chapin Jr.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it: Lou Holtz

Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal: Vincent Lombardi

Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them: Samuel Smiles

Don’t go through life, grow through life: Eric Butterworth

Saturday night, while dining with a former client, a future client and a few friends, I met an acquaintance who owns a similar-sized business in the marketing space. We spoke about the challenges of handling 90+ employees and a few hundred clients. His casual remark stuck in my mind: “In the service industry, with a business this size, you can’t have a personal life. It’s just impossible.”

He said this on a Saturday night at 10 p.m. or so, when I was dining at Philippe, a client’s restaurant, with a former client and a future client by my side.

There are many things which affect the “entrepreneur” lifestyle, and certainly there are many changes that people need to consider before going off on their own.

I have never once regretted being an entrepreneur. It’s the greatest thing in the world. Although, I will say I have never understood the concept of a “lifestyle entrepreneur.” It is harder than anything I have ever done – all encompassing, all the time. But yes, there are many rewards…

Personal boundaries all change. There’s very little separation between work and personal life. My simple solution for this is to genuinely enjoy the people I spend time with professionally as much as possible.

As a young entrepreneur, I always strive for self improvement in all aspects of life, personally and professionally. I am blessed in my business to be surrounded by some brilliant clients from whom I can continually learn.

A senior employee asked me on Saturday afternoon (when we had lunch for an hour to review financials, staffing and the like) why I spend so much time with a certain low paying client. I responded, “His management style is so very different from mine, yet he’s so successful; while I completely disagree with many of his decisions, I like listening to and learning from clients.”

It’s true… but I also genuinely like him, so I try to spend time with him and learn whatever I can from him.

On Sunday afternoon I was in Brooklyn with a client, dining with our children. And there again I thought, from the gym to the dinner table to nightlife to vacations, in the personal service industry, as an entrepreneur, personal boundaries must change.